The Belarusian army is worse equipped and less trained than the Russian army - and that’s on paper, before adjusting for corruption. Also much less motivated. The majority of Belarusians want Lukashenka gone, and he stays only though Putin’s support. There are already Belarusian volunteer units fighting for Ukraine. If Russian soldiers sometimes surrender or desert, we may expect Belarusians to switch sides when given the chance. Still, Belarus fully committing to the invasion would be bad news as it would further stretch out the defense.
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My late ret. SFC dad approves this message (from beyond the grave)…
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chemical weapons are better as a psychological weapon to be deployed without building anything than they are as an actual weapon to be built for deployment. to maintain a chemical munitions force a nation must put together a manufacturing industry to make the agents, plus a weapons industry which can package the munitions safely enough to be handled and stored within the country deploying them, plus the infrastructure to safely deploy them when the time comes to the troops who will handle them. plus, since the majority of the most effective of these agents break down to the point of uselessness over a period of months to single digit years the nation deploying them has to maintain a procurement and replacement program to keep the munitions in working order.
after spending the numerous billions necessary to do all this, the effect of these weapons can be mostly defeated by spending $300-500/soldier for a respirator and $200-400/soldier for an environmental suit. equipping each active duty u.s. soldier with $900 worth of chemical protection would work out to around 0.06% of the current defense department budget, virtually a rounding error, while having the industry and infrastructure needed to maintain and deploy a serious chemical munitions threat would require 10s of billions in up front costs plus multiple billions of annual expenses maintaining it.
a nation with the wealth a power-projection abilities of russia or the united states could get most of the utility of an actually deployable chemical munitions program by saying they had one and issuing respirators and environmental suits to their combat troops.
i don’t say any of this as someone with any kind of insider or specialized knowledge of chemical munitions beyond the ability to read and digest public information nor do i have any specific expertise in industrial infrastructure beyond an understanding of mathematics and reading a balance sheet. on the other hand, given the skills i do have, all of the above is a reasonable reading of the lay of the land
it also seems reasonable inasmuch as the actual uses of chemical weapons have not been particularly effective and it required minimal negotiations for countries to give up their chemical munitions programs especially when compared to negotiations over limiting nuclear and conventional arms. it has been my experience that countries rarely negotiate away so easily weapons systems which are either potentially cost-effective or useful or both.
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I was wondering if these oligarch-offispring would put their money where their mouths are. I mean… from whence comes their wealth in the first place?
In a post last week, Sobchak urged peace, writing that “global geopolitical interests cannot be more important than the simple, peaceful life of millions of people.”
Oh I dunno, it was all working for y’all and it was so profitable, for a while.
Such a shame when that big bright truth spotlight swivels over to where your dark money has to look bad in the light of day, huh?
Yumasheva is the daughter of the billionaire Valentin Yumashev, a trusted advisor to Putin who has been credited with helping the president come to power, the BBC reported.
On her Instagram account, she posted a photo of the Ukrainian flag alongside a broken-heart emoji and the caption “No to war.” She has disabled comments on the post.
Talk is cheap.
Oh I am looking for the helpers.
All the helpers.
Especially the ones who have the means to pitch in way more than the average prole.
And that goes double for the profiteers’ families who must own their own bad, harmful actions.
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Ukrainian officials said Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov was kidnapped after being falsely accused of terrorism.
“The abduction of the mayor of Melitopol is classified as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocol, which prohibit the taking of civilian hostages during the war,” said Ukraine’s foreign ministry in a statement.
Russia has not commented on Fedorov’s fate.
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Counterpoint: Chemical weapons may not be very useful against hostile forces, but they are an efficient tool for murdering and demoralizing civilians, and given the pretextual propaganda coming from Russia, that is how they are going to be used.
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130,000 arrested in one day? That’s two orders of magnitude higher than I remember hearing at the time. That…doesn’t seem like a credible number at a glance, and I can’t find a reference for it except this article. Other articles suggest 13,000 total since Feb 24
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Possibly a typo.
According to OVD-Info, a leading human rights NGO in Russia, 13,500 people have been arbitrarily arrested since Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
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Hillel chapters in Poland and Germany are working to house student refugees; Hillel Deutschland is busy converting their facilities into a shelter.
These critical funds have already allowed us to provide lifesaving food and shelter. Last week we welcomed our first refugees, a group of seven students originally from Nigeria who were pursuing college degrees in Kyiv when the deadly assault began. Given the discrimination African students have faced at the border, the fact that Hillel could be a home for them is crucial.
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Thread (not very long):
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pountercoint–it is also possible to issue to civilians a set of respirator-masks for each citizen. this is something that has been done before in israel. even versus civilians, mitigation is much much cheaper than deployment of an actual system.
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and China just stands idly by as their ‘special relationship’ partner charges full speed down the rogue nation path.
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It is also far easier to disperse easily made irritants and terrify a population, thus keeping costs down and letting fear do the work.
Or even just talk of it, as the next time there is fog or mist or a few colleagues coughing people will become paranoid very quickly. Fear is often the most efficient weapon of all.
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When you have money, but you need planes, a bit of lateral thinking is called for:
ETA:
Ack!
And:
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Already posted by @RickMycroft
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No one nation should be taking the brunt of refugees. It needs to be coordinated and spread out.
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This might explain the “migratory birds” bit.
BTRP supports many collaborative research projects through which Ukrainian and American scientists work together. A few recent examples are:
“Risk Assessment of Selected Avian EDPs Potentially Carried by Migratory Birds over Ukraine”
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